For quite some time, I operated under the theory that every college radio station had their one artist, the band or performer that the whole population of DJs tirelessly championed despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that no one else out there in the big, boundless musicverse understood the greatness contained within their records. I didn’t have a lot of empirical evidence to back this theory up. I’d peruse individual station charts in the back of CMJ and notice the occasional obscure outfit charting in the upper reaches of someone’s list, or have a label rep push some release … Continue reading One for Friday: Too Much Joy, “Hey Merlin”

I was always a little envious of the bands that Minnesota could claim as their own. At the college radio station, we always tried to take great pride in Wisconsin bands, figuring that supporting our home state was one of the moral obligations of celebrating the under-celebrated at the left end of the dial. Problem was, we didn’t have that many bands to get excited about. Sure, Milwaukee had someone as iconic as Violent Femmes, but their self-titled debut was six-years-old when I started college, ancient history to us then. Madison’s Fire Town released their sophomore album during my freshman … Continue reading One for Friday: Gear Daddies, “Dream Vacation”